The hallowed halls of academia may have filled with a dizzying array of counter-culture fashion since the 1960s, but like its fellow fashion statement the corduroy jacket, the academic beard continues to hold fast to the faces of many an academic.

Dr. Thomas Kadyk has been a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Eikerling Research Group at Simon Fraser University since Spring 2012.

Kadyk's area of research is Modeling of Nanocomposite Supercapacitor Electrodes. He says that today’s
energy supply encounters two main problems: on the one hand, the
emission of greenhouse gases causes an anthropogenic climate change with
negative consequences for natural and human systems on a global scale.
On the other hand, fossil energy sources, on which today’s
energy supply is mainly based, are limited and expected to run out
within the next generations. Possible solutions and mitigation
strategies for these problems include the use of sustainable, renewable
energy sources and the increase of the efﬁciency in the use of energy.
In this context, electrochemical energy conversion and storage play a
key role, i.e. in form of fuel cells, supercapacitors and batteries.
These are the topics which he tackles from an engineering point of
view with a solid background of combining experiments and theory in the
field of electrochemistry.